The Confusing Parts of Slumber Parties
by Adriana Snow
Summary: Bow and Glimmer throw Adora a slumber party complete with make-overs, stealing food from the kitchen, and sneaking around the castle, but there are a few things Adora doesn't understand about life at Bright Moon that Glimmer and Bow don't even realize they need to explain. Everyone gets grounded by the end of it.


Adora opened her bedroom door a crack to find Glimmer and Bow standing outside it with wide grins on their faces. Both were struggling to carry loads of pillows and blankets.

"Wha-" Adora started but cut off when Glimmer shoved past her into the room.

"Slumber party!" Bow explained happily.

"Slumber party?" she asked.

"Slumber party!" Glimmer exclaimed throwing up her arms and dumping her load into a messy pile at her feet.

"Uh, thanks. But I've gotten used to sleeping alone now, so it's fine," Adora said as Bow moved past her to set his pile of blankets carefully on her bed.

"Yeah, but that wasn't a real slumber party, and Bow pointed out that you probably didn't know what a slumber party actually was so-" she teleported away and dropped a couple of inches onto Adora's bed with a bounce, messing up the stack of blankets Bow had just placed there. She threw her arms out. "-we decided to throw you a real one! And we're pulling out all of the stops: pillow fights, blanket forts, Truth or Dare!"

"No! No Truth or Dare." Glimmer flopped onto her back and pouted up at Bow. He put his hands on his hips. "You get too competitive at Truth or Dare."

"We were thirteen!"

"I almost plummeted to my death!"

"I would have caught you."

"I'm just lucky your mom can fly." He yanked a pillow out from under her head and smacked it on her face, an act that Adora had deduced was meant not as a violence, but as a play-fight bonding experience. Like sparing, but fluffier.

"Hey, no! I'm the pillow fight instigator!" Glimmer complained while reaching a hand to the side to grab another pillow before retaliating.

Adora watched them trade blows for a moment, but they both burnt out rather quickly. "Oh!" Glimmer said and then, with a shower of sparkles, she was in front of her, grabbing her hands and pulling her toward the center of the room. Adora stumbled after her. "What do you want to do first?"

"Uh…"

Glimmer kicked a couple of the pillows on the floor around and then pulled her down onto the pile rather violently. "I know! Makeovers!" Glimmer said.

Bow gasped. "Makeovers!" he squeed, bounding over and plopping down between them. "You had the stuff for face masks, didn't you Glimmer?"

"Uh, yeah, hmm, it's somewhere in here," she said patting around the pile of pillows. She picked one up and dug her hand into the pillowcase before chucking it over her shoulder. Adora was glad that there weren't daily living corridor inspections at Bright Moon.

"Ah, yes, makeovers. Exciting," Adora said with a forced smile.

"Don't worry," Glimmer said, her voice muffled as she had stuck her head into a pillow case. She popped back out to say, "we'll show you what it is."

Adora felt her shoulders relax. "Thanks."

"You'll like it! It's fun!" Bow reassured her. His hand came down on her shoulder and he squeezed gently. Adora smiled back at him.

"Here it is!" Glimmer said from under the bed. She teleported back to her seat, pillow in hand. She shook the pillow, scattering a bunch of tools and supplies that Adora didn't recognize all over the floor. "Oops, the pillow's stained with lipstick now."

"I told you we should have made two trips." Glimmer rolled her eyes in response.

"Cucumbers?" Adora asked when she identified the contents of one of the containers. "Can I eat them."

"No, those are for your eyes," Bow told her.

Adora blinked. "Why?"

"Because," he glanced at Glimmer who shrugged. "I don't know. But it's fun!"

"Uh…"

"You'll see. Let's set everything up, Bow."

They went about setting something up, grabbing one of the chairs in her room and an end table and shoving them into a corner before sorting through the supplies. Adora's eyes were drawn to the cucumbers. When their backs were turned, she slowly reached toward the container.

_Crunch._

"Adora!" Glimmer whirled around, her hands on her hips, but she didn't seem too angry: more amused.

"Shor-ry," she mumbled through her snack.

She sighed and turned to Bow. "Maybe we should do snacks first, so she doesn't eat all our supplies."

Adora perked up. "Wait. Are snacks an activity at slumber parties?"

Glimmer and Bow exchanged an amused look. "Yes, Adora. Snacks are an integral part of slumber parties," Glimmer assured her.

"Yes!" she shoved the cucumbers aside and hopped to her feet. "What?" she asked. They were both staring at her with big grins on their faces.

"Nothing," Glimmer said and grabbed her hand. "Let's go get some food."

"But…"

Bow grabbed her arms and steered her toward the door. "Come on Adora."

Adora glanced around at the empty hallway they walked into. "Um. Guys. It's a little late. Is the kitchen even open right now?"

"Not technically. But, it's fine. We just have to be quiet, so we don't wake up Margret."

"Who's Margret?"

"The head chef," Bow replied. "Her room's right next to the kitchen."

"Oh, so we're stealing food."

"No!" Bow replied.

Glimmer's eyes sparkled. "Yeah! We're on a stealth mission!" She pumped a fist into the air. Bow scoffed, and Glimmer coughed awkwardly. "I mean," she whispered. "We're on a stealth mission." She pumped her fist a bit less enthusiastically.

Bow sighed. "Well, in that case, we should probably avoid the guards that are going to come down this hallway in about 30 seconds."

"Right," she grabbed both of them and they teleported away. Adora felt something hit her in the back of the head and she jumped.

"Is this a broom closet?" she hissed shoving away what felt like a mop.

"Yeah," Glimmer and Bow both replied. She saw a shadow that was Glimmer's height press its ear against the door.

"Okay," Glimmer said, "we're in a closet across the hall from the kitchen. This hallway is on the rotation for two separate guard routes. So, we'll have about a 5-minute gap."

"Unfortunately, they can see into the kitchen pretty well, so we'll have to be careful," Bow continued.

"So, the two of you have done this before then?" Adora asked.

"A couple of times, yeah," Glimmer said. "Bow likes the chocolate cookies Margret keeps above the sink."

"Hey, don't pretend I'm the one who instigates. You're always hungry when you're not supposed to be."

It was a familiar argument from Adora's own childhood. Well. Minus the chocolate cookies part. Even if there had been any she and Catra wouldn't have dared steal them because either the person who'd stored them there would instantly notice if they went missing or they'd deliberately put them there as a trap. She'd thought with the abundance of food Bright Moon seemed to have available during meals that it would maybe be different, but apparently that was not the case. She felt a bit of adrenaline spike and hoped they knew what they were doing. She didn't want to know what the punishment for sneaking food was here. Stealing food punishments were usually the worst kinds.

"Okay, the guards just walked past," Glimmer whispered. "Ready, set, go." She shoved open the door gently, glancing around and then they all bolted across the hall. Bow got to the kitchen door first and silently pulled it open. Glimmer and Adora skated into the room.

"Bow, get the sweets. I'll get stuff for sandwiches. Adora, keep watch so we can hide when the guards come by."

"Honestly," Bow huffed hustling to the other side of the kitchen.

"On it," Adora said, moving so her back was against the wall by the door. She glanced down the hallway.

She listened to the others whisper shouting to get the strawberry jam and not to forget the cinnamon rolls for a couple of minutes.

"Hey, guys," Adora said suddenly. "What does Margret look like?"

"Uh, black hair, a spider tattoo on her arm, and about 5 feet of pure rage, why?" Bow answered.

"'Cause I think she's coming down the hall." Glimmer and Bow paused and turned to her with wide eyes.

"Abort!" Glimmer yelled.

"Ahhhh," Bow replied, swooping up what he had on the counter in front of him.

Adora and Glimmer dived toward him and they disappeared just as Adora heard the door click open.

A small "oops" was the only warning Adora had before they all fell about a foot onto the ground.

"Glimmer the cookies!" Bow complained, rolling off a package of cookies.

Glimmer rolled to her back with a groan and then giggled. They all ended up descending into laughter laying on the floor.

"Okay," Glimmer said after a while, sitting up. "What did we manage to get?"

"Well, we have a crushed package of chocolate chip cookies," Bow said. "A handful of thumbprints and half a loaf of banana bread."

"I've got four sandwiches and whatever this is," she opened the lid of a jar and sniffed it, "Cranberry sauce?"

"A true feast," Bow said. He started sorting through the cookies, separating the mostly intact ones from the broken and crushed ones.

Adora glanced around. "Hey where are we?" They were in a huge hallway that was slightly lit by glowing crystals suspended by nothing.

"Oh, we're in the crystal room," Glimmer said ripping the sandwiches into more-or-less equal thirds. "It's one of my favorite rooms in the castle."

"What are those?" Adora asked. Bow nudged her with a stack of cookies which she took and shoved immediately in her mouth.

"They're Kalenian Crystals. They're really powerful crystals enchanted by sorcerers. They're a backup power source for the castle in case anything goes wrong." She finished tearing up the sandwiches and passed them around.

Adora wasn't sure what type of sandwich she was eating, but it was fantastic. She watched Bow spoon out some cranberry sauce onto his sandwich and followed suit. That was even better! "They look really cool," Adora said after swallowing the last bit of the first sandwich piece. She shoved another one into her mouth. It had some other type of meat on it, but it was still good.

"Here, I'll show you one," Glimmer said, disappearing into a cloud of sparkles. Adora and Bow looked up and saw a flash as she grabbed one from midair and then reappeared in front of them. Adora swallowed the food she'd been eating. The crystal hovered a bit over Glimmer's upturned palms and glowed a soft yellow. It hummed as they watched, and Glimmer's magic sparked from her hands a bit. The magic mingled with the glow already coming from it, tinging the light purple. "My dad made this one," she confided softly.

There was something Adora didn't quite understand in her voice. Something sad and soft. Bow seemed to understand enough at least. He leant over and gave her a quick one-armed hug. She seemed to snap out of it and smiled at him.

"I'm sorry," Adora felt compelled to say, trying to alleviate the strange squeezing sensation in her chest. It didn't quite work.

"I'm fine," Glimmer said and made a gentle motion with her hands. The crystal floated up to hover a bit above their heads, casting soft shadows over them.

"It's beautiful," Adora said.

"Yeah. They're really cool. Dad thought we should have a backup power source just in case so he and some of his friends made these."

"He was very wise," Adora said.

"Yep," Glimmer reached forward to tear about a third of the banana bread off and started chewing on the handful of bread. Bow went back to eating a piece of sandwich and after a moment, Adora followed suit.

Adora finished her share of the food first and laid back against the floor, staring up at the crystal hovering above them. In the short time she'd been working with the rebellion, Adora had seen that the man who had made it still cast a shadow over the people here: Glimmer and The Queen especially, but also everyone else in the castle from the people who served breakfast to the castle guards. That was alien to Adora. She'd known many people in the Horde who had died in the war, some even rather important in the hierarchy, but most went unmourned or, even if they were, were forgotten shortly afterwards. But, Glimmer's father seemed to linger in the castle walls. It made something squirm oddly in Adora's stomach, but at the same time, it was nice to think that if she were to die in the war, people here may think of her still months or even years after she was gone.

Glimmer's face popped into view above her. She was holding a thumbprint cookie. "I'm not hungry anymore. Want it?" she asked. That was another odd thing about people from Bright Mood she couldn't understand, but she wasn't going to say no to food. Adora nodded and Glimmer pushed it against her lips. Adora let her mouth fall open and Glimmer dropped it in.

"You shouldn't eat laying down," Bow scolded. Adora could see Glimmer rolling her eyes. "If you sit up to eat it you can have my last sandwich."

Adora quickly sat up, almost bumping heads with Glimmer who backed up with a chuckle. Bow tossed the sandwich piece at her. "Thanks," she said, cramming the whole thing into her mouth. She had such great friends.

"Now that we've fed the beast, do you promise not to consume the facemask supplies?" Glimmer asked while poking her in the stomach.

Adora swatted her away. "I'll think about it."

"Good enough for me!" Glimmer shot up. "Just let me put the crystal away." She jumped a bit to grab it and then disappeared. Bow and Adora got to their feet.

"Wait!" Bow and Adora jumped and looked up. There was a loud crash as the crystal Glimmer had gotten shattered on the ground. "No, no, no, no!" Glimmer said appearing next to the shards. Adora and Bow raced over to her.

"Are you okay?" Bow asked.

"For now," she groaned. "But my mom's going to kill me. And then she's going to resurrect me. And then she's going to kill me again."

Adora felt her stomach drop. The food she'd just ate suddenly sat heavily in her gut. "Maybe she won't notice," she said nervously.

"Oh, she'll notice," Glimmer pulled on a bit of her hair.

Adora twitched nervously, but then steeled herself. "Then, we'll fix it before she notices," she said, determined. "It can't be too hard."

"I don't think that's going to be possible," Bow said, looking at the shards scattered on the ground. "It's pretty broken."

"No, Adora's right," Glimmer said, standing up. "We'll fix it."

"Glimmer it was made by a powerful sorcerer. How are we going to fix it?"

"I'm half-sorcerer," Glimmer said.

"Glimmer that's not how being a sorcerer works. You have to study to be one."

"Whatever, it'll be fine."

"Glimmer…"

"Well we have to do something, Bow," Adora pointed out with a frown.

"Or," Bow said. "We could just go tell you mom."

"You said your dad made this," Adora said, shooting Bow a dark look. How could he say something like that? He blinked at her in surprise. "Would he have anything written about them?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah, he'd probably have something about it in his library."

"Okay," Adora said. "Then we'll go there."

"Uh. You mean the library you have to go through your mom's bedroom to get to?" Bow asked.

"Oh," Glimmer gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah…"

"Well you can just teleport into it right?" Adora asked.

"No, Mom and dad kinda Glimmer proofed his library after I accidently let a Golem Termite loose in the castle when I was 5," Glimmer said. "They put up blockers, so I can't teleport into it."

"Oh, well. That makes this more difficult," Adora said.

"You're right. We should just not do this and instead tell your mom and have her fix it."

"No, Bow," Adora ground out with a scowl. "We have to do this. For Glimmer."

"The good news is the blockers only keep me out. I can teleport once I'm in there and I can teleport us out. So, we just have to sneak in."

"Through the bedroom. That your mother is probably asleep in?" Bow asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Glimmer winced. "Yeah." When Bow kept his arms crossed over his chest, she titled her head and pushed out her bottom lip. Adora glared at him over her head. "Please, Bow?"

He let out a sigh. "Fine."

Glimmer lit up. "Okay. Let's go!" She reached out and grabbed both of them. They appeared in another hallway.

Bow smothered a yelp with his hand. "Please give me more of a warning when we are on a stealth mission," he hissed.

"Sorry," Glimmer whispered back.

"Which door?" Adora asked. Glimmer pointed and they all crept over to it.

Glimmer grabbed the doorknob and opened it a crack to peak. She pulled her head out. "She's in there and asleep. We'll have to be really quiet."

"This is a bad idea," Bow reminded them.

"It's the only chance we've got," Adora said solemnly.

"Okay, here we go," Glimmer said, pushing the door open just a bit more. Glimmer got on her hands and knees to crawl across the floor; Bow and Adora followed her lead after Bow gently closed the door behind them. Adora glanced around a bit. It was a huge bedroom and it looked fancy even in the dark. She could hear rushing water from what she assumed was a waterfall. She was glad there was something to cover the sound of them moving. They made slow, silent, progress across the floor toward a large door on the other side of the room. They were almost there when Glimmer must have stepped on something because she suddenly whispered "Ow!" a bit too loud.

There was movement on the bed. All three of them froze.

"Glimmer?" asked a voice.

"Go," Glimmer breathed before teleporting away.

Bow shoved Adora toward the door.

"Sorry mom," Glimmer said quietly from the other side of the room. "I accidently teleported here in my sleep again."

"Did you have a nightmare?" the queen asked. Her voice was different then Adora had ever heard it, soft and sleepy. Nothing like how Adora knew it would be if she found out what Glimmer had done.

"No mom," Glimmer said. "I'm fine. Just was having a slumber party in Adora's room and must have gotten confused."

They'd gotten to the door and Bow slowly raised his hand and turned the door knob. There was a quiet click.

"Are you sure?" the queen asked.

"Yeah mom, go back to sleep," she said. There was a kissing sound as Glimmer kissed her mom's forehead. Bow and Adora slipped through the door.

They waited with bated breath for a few minutes before Glimmer finally slipped through the door and closed it very slowly behind her. She leaned her back against it and all three of them exhaled in tandem.

"This way," Glimmer whispered, leading them a bit down a small hallway and through a second set of doors. Only once they'd closed behind her did she reach over and switch on the lights.

"Wow. We really just pulled that off," Glimmer said cheerily.

"That was worse than the time you almost made me fall to my death."

"You were fine."

"Yeah, I don't think your mom would be swooping in to save me from this one, though. She'd be doing the opposite actually."

Adora was already moving to look at the library. "Wow. This is more books than I've ever seen," she said.

Glimmer looked around. "It's not really that big. We should show you the main library."

"There's a bigger library than this?" Adora asked, her eyes a bit wide.

"Yeah, this is just for my mom and dad's personal stuff," Glimmer teleported halfway up a ladder causing it to slide slightly under her weight, "but there's a public one with, like, a bunch more stuff." She grabbed a book off the shelf and looked at it's cover. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

"What are we looking for?" Bow asked.

"I don't know. Something about crystals," Glimmer mumbled.

"You don't know?"

"Something about crystals!"

Bow sighed and walked away to look at one of the bookshelves.

"Hey, Glimmer, are you alright?" Adora asked. Glimmer glanced down and then teleported next to her.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Everything will be fine I promise," Adora said, placing a firm hand on Glimmer's shoulder.

"Uh, thanks," she said, a crease between her eyebrows appearing briefly. Adora nodded and turned away to start going through books with Bow.

"Oh, I think I found it," Bow said. Glimmer immediately teleported over to him, making him jump and grabbed the book from him.

"Yes! This is it!" she said excitedly as Adora jogged over to them. "Oh."

"What?" Adora asked.

"Um. It's just that this looks a bit complicated," Glimmer said. "And we need some ingredients that might be hard to get."

"Well. Then we need to get started," Adora stated.

Glimmer looked up at her over the book. "Uh. Look. We tried, but it's getting late and I'm starting to wonder if this is all worth it."

"Of course, it's worth it Glimmer," Adora said. "Don't think like that."

"Uh…"

"We have to do this."

"Okay…" Glimmer said.

"What do we need for it?" Adora asked.

"Well…"

"I got one!" Adora said excitedly.

Glimmer and Bow exchanged a look. "Great… that's great," Glimmer said. "Hey Adora?"

"Yes?" she asked, hanging by one leg from the rafter of the castle barn, a jar with a glowing horse slug in her hands. It was furiously slamming its face against the glass and its brethren on the roof were noticing, their poisonous spikes raising in anger. One went to attack her, and Glimmer quickly teleported to get her and bring them back to the barn floor.

Glimmer yawned when they reappeared. "I think this is enough," she said.

Adora frowned. "No, we still have to get a scale from a resurrected dragon." Glimmer and Bow looked at each other again and then Glimmer teleported them back into the castle.

"Yeah, no I think we should just give up," Glimmer said.

"No. I won't let that happen."

"Adora!" Glimmer groused.

"Look we're almost done," she said. She was visibly upset. "Then we just need Glimmer to cast the spell and no one will ever know."

"It's already 6am Adora," Bow reasoned. "We haven't even slept."

"We'll sleep when we're done," Adore snapped stubbornly. Bow groaned.

"Nope. That's it. We are telling my mom."

"You're telling your mom what?" All three of them jumped more than they usually would, strung out from the sleepless night of sneaking around.

"Mom!" Glimmer said.

"Glimmer."

"I accidently broke one of dad's Kalenian Crystals," she said hanging her head. "Sorry."

"Wait, no, it was my fault," Adora said, inserting her body between them. The queen looked over the girl standing firmly in front of her, her jaw locked and her posture tense and then over her shoulder at her daughter who was looking at her friend and seeming very confused.

"Glimmer, you're grounded," the queen said.

"Yeah, okay." The queen looked surprised at this response and then her eyebrows creased in worry.

"You normally argue when I ground you," she said walking around Adora to Glimmer, concern etched in her face. She grabbed her chin to look at her. "Are you alright?"

Glimmer yawned. "Yeah, mom, I'm just tired. And I resolved myself to being grounded like 4 hours ago."

The queen considered her with sharp eyes. "You're sure."

"Mhmmm," Glimmer hummed tiredly as her mother pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

"Wait, I'm confused," Adora said looking at them strangely. "You said your mom would kill you for breaking that."

The three others in the room stared at her blankly for a moment. "Well, yeah, but, I… that's just an expression Adora," Glimmer said. Adora just blinked at her. Everyone was still for a few moments. "Adora, my mom isn't going to _hurt _me. She's my _mom._"

"Oh," she said in that startled way she always did when they explained something that was fundamentally different here than in the Horde.

The queen's wings had flared up a bit. Adora eyed her posture worriedly. While the claim had been made that she wouldn't hurt Glimmer, it certainly looked like could hurt someone. She took a step toward Adora and Adora stumbled back just a tiny bit. The queen stopped and seemed to school herself, her wings folding down against her back.

"Glimmer, I think your friend and I need to have a discussion," she said.

"Yeah," Glimmer said a bit distantly.

"I will have the kitchen make us some tea," Queen Angella said.

"We also stole food last night," Adora blurted out. The queen titled her head in confusion and looked back at Glimmer and Bow.

"No, we didn't. It was just a game Adora," Bow said, walking towards her. His hands gently came down on her shoulders as though she might shatter.

"But-"

"We can have food whenever, it was just for fun," he said, exhaustion and worry plain on his face. "We should have explained that, but we didn't think. Come on, the queen's right. I think we all need to talk. Let's go down to the dining room."

The tea had gone cold by the time Angella was satisfied with the results of the conversation with Adora. They'd been sure to explain in depth exactly the nature of the relationship between Glimmer and the Queen and ended up having to have a bit of a sex education crash course in the middle of it to Glimmer's great discomfort. They'd then explained some other things like protocols to get food and other needed resources in off hours. There had also been a lecture about not attempting to preform "dangerous spells you got out of a book from my library. That goes for you too Glimmer." Adora had been made to promise that she'd ask clarifying questions next time and then she'd been sent off to bed even though she'd insisted that she was fine, and it was her fault that she was so tired anyway.

Once, her friend was out of sight, Glimmer let her head fall onto the table with a groan, clearly exhausted.

"You're still grounded for the day Glimmer," her mother said.

"Oh, no, I'm so torn up about staying in my room all day not doing anything," Glimmer said into the table.

"Yeah, can I be grounded too Your Majesty?" Bow asked, his head barely propped up by his elbow.

Angella chucked. "Yes, Bow, you can be grounded too."


End file.
